Orange roughy for Fish of the Year 2025
Ahoy! It's Fish of the Year time, and orange roughy urgently need your vote. This remarkable fish, that lives to over 250 years, is caught by destructive bottom trawling. With NZ responsible for over 80% of the global catch, their future is in our hands.
We're taking legal action to ensure ecological limits are respected. You can help by voting for this incredible fish.
Orange roughy are in trouble, again.
In the 80s and 90’s we fished orange roughy almost to collapse. Stricter controls were put in place which enabled the populations to recover, somewhat. However, stocks of orange roughy are once again in a precarious position.
What we didn’t know then is that orange roughy are one of the longest-living fish in the world. They can live up to 250 years old, and perhaps even older.
They are also very slow to mature, and don’t breed until they are 25-30 years old. This makes the population especially vulnerable to over-fishing.
The future of this fish is in our hands.
Orange roughy, or niho rota, live in waters more than a kilometre deep around seamounts that take thousands to millions of years to form.
They are fished by bottom trawling. A highly destructive fishing method which destroys these ancient seamounts -- the habitat for orange roughy and many other creatures of the deep sea.
New Zealand fishing vessels are responsible for around 80% of the global orange roughy catch. That means the future of this fish is in our hands.
We’re standing up for orange roughy.
We’re taking a High Court challenge to the Minister of Oceans and Fisheries regarding his 2023 total allowable catch limit decision.
We’re alleging that this decision was made unlawfully and failed to take an ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management.
